If I could only use one word to describe how I’ve been most of my life, it would be insecure. I have rarely felt comfortable in my own skin, in the person God created me to be. I always felt like the people in my life wanted me to be more than I was or just completely different. I thought my parents wanted me to be smarter. I thought my friends wanted me to talk more. I thought the guys I dated wanted me to be more fun. From a pretty young age, the message I “heard” from the world was “you’re too much” and “you’re not enough”.
Even after becoming a Christian when I was 11 years old, I still heard this message. Even after realizing in high school that being a Christian is about having a personal relationship with Jesus, I still heard this message. In college, I began struggling more than ever with anxiety and depression, and the world’s message got louder. Unfortunately, I believed the message more often than not, and this led me down some treacherous and painful paths.
Because of the insecurity I so often felt, I compromised my Christian beliefs time and time again. I drank too much several times. I cursed. I acted needy and clingy. I went too far in several dating relationships, and I eventually went completely against God’s expectations of purity outside of marriage. I made all of these decisions because I wanted to please people, I wanted to be accepted, I wanted to fit in, I wanted to be loved. Sometimes I felt these things from the people around me, but I didn’t like who I had become. I even had thoughts of suicide, because I thought the world would be better off without me. I was a mess, and all because I was choosing to listen to the enemy.
I was a Christian during all of this, so I knew how God felt about me. I just struggled to fully believe those things. It was in my head but not in my heart. I will forever be grateful that He never gave up on me. Nothing I did made Him leave me or forsake me.
The past eight months, God has been taking me on an intense journey of finding redemption and healing. It began with realizing the freedom I had from my sins and shame because of my relationship with Christ. All I had to do was run far away from the sins that were holding me down. (*read about it here) It continued when I began to truly see the good in how God created me and the purpose He has for quiet, gentle personality. (*read about it here) Next, I realized that having joy was a choice based on how I view the world around me. (*read about it here)
That leads me to Nepal. All along, I thought I had basically healed from my last relationship…until we came to Nepal, and I realize I am still feeling so much shame from the choices I made as a Christian. I didn’t think I could be very effective in Nepal, because I felt like a hypocrite. I realized I had never completely healed from past. I had just put a really big band-aid over it. I finally sat down alone with God, first by the lake and then at a coffee shop, and I let Him speak into my life and how I had been feeling. He led me to three verses in the Bible that I already knew and loved, but in that low moment those verses spoke straight to my soul. It was almost like I was hearing them for the first time.
“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Therefore I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.” -2 Corinthians 12:9-10
“For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself according to His favor and will, to the praise of His glorious grace that He favored us with in the Beloved.” -Ephesians 1:4-6
“But God, who is abundant in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. By grace you are saved! He also raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” -Ephesians 2:4-7
Through those verses, God showed me a deeper level of His unconditional love and grace. God doesn’t approve of the mistakes I made, but He also knows I’m not perfect. He knew every sin I would ever commit, and yet God still sent His son to die for me. He still didn’t want to spend eternity without me. Jesus died for me, a dirty sinner, all because He LOVED me. His love is for me is higher than the mountains and deeper than the seas. It is reckless and unexplainable and overcomes all obstacles to find me. I still struggle, and I always will, but I know that the struggles will never overtake me if I look to the Lord every time and remember His vast love for me.
